The German fruit farmers expect 50,700 metric tons a cherry harvest just under the average of the last decade. And according to the first estimates of the German Bureau of Statistics (Destatis) an amount of 33,100 metric tons sweet cherries and 17,600 metric tons of sour cherries can be expected.
The cherry harvest is 5% lower than the average of the last decade (sweet cherries +6 %; sour cherries –20 %).
However compared to 2014 the sweet cherry harvest will be 16% lower and the sour cherry harvest will reach the same level.
The drop in the sour cherry harvest can be contributed to the decrease in acreage since 2007. With 8600 kg per hectare the third highest yield, after 2006 and 2009, of the past decade is expected.
On almost 5,200 hectare of orchards the German sweet cherries grow, with the largest part, 40%, of the acreage in Baden-Württemberg. Sour cherries are cultivated on 2000 hectare, mostly in Rheinland-Pfalz, 620 hectare, and Saxony 490 hectare.
Cherry harvest 2015
Preliminary estimate (June), sweet and sour cherries
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1 Results of fruit tree survey 2012
Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia: acreage of fruit-bearing trees and updated acreage.
. = Data unknown or confidential